This Week In Crazy: Craziness Runs In The Cruz Family, And The Rest Of The Worst Of The Right
Welcome to “This Week In Crazy,” The National Memo’s weekly update on the wildest attacks, conspiracy theories, and other loony behavior from the increasingly unhinged right wing. Starting with number five:
5. Randy Neugebauer
Lacking a good explanation for why they refuse to fund the federal government unless the White House gives in to their hostage demands, in the past few days congressional Republicans have latched on to the closing of the World War II Memorial as a way to turn the messaging war against Democrats. Multiple congressmembers have joined veterans at the monument, claiming that its closure represented government at its most callous.
Congressman Randy Neugebauer (R-TX) somewhat undermined that message on Wednesday, when he decided to shift blame for the closure away from Congress and the White House, and onto an innocent park ranger who was simply trying to do her job.
“The Park Service should be ashamed of themselves,” said Neugebauer, who — having repeatedly voted against funding the government — is actually responsible for the shutdown.
“I’m not ashamed,” the ranger replied.
“You should be,” Neugebauer responded icily.
If you’re wondering just how crazy a congressman would have to be for blaming a crisis that he voted to cause on a low-level Park Service employee, consider that Neugebauer is best known for shouting “baby killer!” at a Democratic colleague who was speaking on the House floor. Clearly shame (or lack thereof) is a subject in which the congressman is extremely well versed.
4. Rafael Cruz
When it comes to unhinged, fact-free rants about President Barack Obama, it turns out that Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) is a chip off the old block.
During a speech at the Adams County Republican Party’s Lincoln Day Dinner in Colorado, Senator Cruz’s father, Rafael, unleashed a series of right-wing conspiracies that would have fit right into his son’s 21-hour fake filibuster.
“So Barack Obama said: If the winds shift, I will side with the Muslims,” Cruz told the crowd, in a frequently repeated misquote from the president’s book, The Audacity of Hope.
“He is Muslim!” one of the audience members responded.
“McCain couldn’t say that, because it’s not politically correct,” Cruz replied. “It’s time to stop being politically correct!”
At another moment, Cruz turned the volume on Sarah Palin’s “death panels” lie up to 11:
Obamacare, with denying care to the elderly, with care being rationed, with care being postponed for 12 to 18 months, with care being controlled by a group of bureaucrats, that on the basis of cost/benefit, will decide whether you get a medical procedure or not, they’re destroying our end of life. As a matter of fact, one of the things in Obamacare is that the elderly, every five years you must have end-of-life counseling. Translation: suicide counseling!
The crowd loved Rafael Cruz’s wacky rhetoric so much that Ted Cruz is probably starting to worry about a primary challenge from his pops.
3. Glenn Beck
Over the past several years, rising partisanship and chronic obstruction have grounded legislative progress in the U.S. Senate to a near-halt. Thankfully, noted congressional scholar Glenn Beck has a solution: elect Louie Gohmert.
In an apparent attempt to create a This Week In Crazy caucus, last week Beck suggested that he and Gohmert both run for Senate from Texas. While Beck was mercifully kidding about his own candidacy, he is dead serious about sending Gohmert to the upper chamber of Congress.
On the Wednesday edition of Beck’s show, he told Congressman Gohmert that he should run, insisting that “you are the guy,” and “we live in a time of miracles.”
“As long as we’re on God’s side, who could stand against us?” Beck asked.
That followed his significantly creepier overture from the day before, when Beck threatened “to camp outside of Louie Gohmert’s house” until he declares his candidacy.
“I am going to be Louie Gohmert’s worst nightmare until he says ‘yes, I’m going to run for Senate,'” Beck declared. Right Wing Watch has the video:
So there you have it: Glenn Beck will be Louie Gohmert’s worst nightmare, until Gohmert agrees to be ours.
2. Glenn Beck
Beck makes a rare double appearance on the list this week, for a take on the closure of national park monuments that makes Congressman Neugebauer seem quite reasonable by comparison.
According to Beck, it wasn’t House Republicans who shut down the Park Service — it was “Marxist revolutionaries” in the Obama administration, laying the groundwork for a communist uprising (again).
“I want you to understand you are now seeing what I told you about three weeks ago. I told you they have gone from nudge to shove,” Beck said. “Your next step is shoot.”
“Understand they are into shove, every Marxist communist revolution always ends with millions dead,” Beck added. “Always, without fail, every time.”
Beck would also like viewers to know that the only way to prevent Obama from killing millions in his “Marxist communist revolution” is to join Beck’s “defund the GOP” campaign. What a coincidence!
1. Alex Jones
This week’s “winner” is conspiracy king Alex Jones, who once again set a new standard for derangement with his Wednesday afternoon segment on Obamacare.
Jones spent the segment warning that vaccines give people syphilis and cancer, that fluoride is put in the water supply to control the masses, and that the American government would make Adolf Hitler, Jeffrey Dahmer, and Joseph Stalin proud.
Oh, and he delivered the entire rant while dressed as a top hat-wearing lizard from outer space. You read that correctly.
We have an informal rule about Jones at This Week In Crazy: As he is so deranged that he could fill all five spots by himself every single week, Jones is only featured when he gets too ridiculous to ignore. This most certainly qualifies.
H/t to the good folks at Right Wing Watch, who watch InfoWars so we don’t have to.
Check out previous editions of This Week In Crazy here. Think we missed something? Let us know in the comments!
